Radiate
by which-chartreuse
Summary: Imagine a distant or not-too-distant future where Karen might successfully get the Punisher to retire. But not without paying a price. Again, another poor summary by me. Rated for implied violence. Passing references to Daredevil and Punisher seasons 1 and 2.
1. Radiate

**Spoilers:** Vague references to Punisher seasons one and two and the Daredevil series. No hard spoilers  
 **A/N:** This is a pretty quiet, not exactly anything going on kind of story. It came into my head like a series of short scenes. I have been working on more screenwriting lately, so that probably influenced the stringing-togetherness of this, and means my tenses probably bounced back and forth a lot. I tried to catch them all, but I'm only human. And I like to think it maybe gives the feel of things only just having occurred. Maybe. I have a small notion of where this might go, but I haven't been able to bring myself to finish it yet. So here it is, being whatever it is. Thanks for reading. 2/5/2019 Update – I have changed my time/page breaks to timestamps instead of random numbers to clarify that there are some flashbacks. These will continue throughout the coming chapters. -WC

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12:02am November 29

It hurt to breathe. She almost believed she could hear her ribcage creaking beneath the ringing in her ears. With each breath, a crackling rose out of her throat. Almost.

The bruises were real. There was a good chance the fractures were real, too. But there would be no emergency x-rays, no consulting diagnosis, no doctors.

She felt another bout of coughing building in her lungs and squeezed her coat against her chest to cushion her bones. The pain was a series of explosions inside her.

With a shudder, her knees buckled. She dropped the coat and grasped the cold edge of the sink to keep from collapsing to the ground.

Black stains and spreading red marred the white of her blouse. She kept her chin tucked as she struggled back to standing. She opened the tap and cupped her hands, carefully sipping the cold water, trying to soothe the burning, stabbing cough.

Her lungs stilled, but the pain was continuous.

She let the tap run as she splashed her sweat and soot streaked face, scrubbing with a flat open palm. Warm, salty tears disappeared immediately into the chilly water. Still, the wincing hiccups that came with the tears split her face.

"Pull it together, Page," she whispered to herself, grasping the sink's edge once more. One deep, shaky breath followed the last. Two, three, four, five breaths and she was steady again. Or as steady as could be expected, given the circumstances. But she was prepared for this. Had been prepared for a while.

"Follow the plan."

She probably should have changed the blood-stained shirt, but she'd already lost precious minutes at the sink, so the soiled silk disappeared beneath a dark sweater and her black trench. She discarded the stained camel jacket down the garbage shoot before shifting her shoulder bag across her chest and hoisting the duffel to her shoulder with a stifled groan.

When her feet hit the pavement, she hazarded a last glance to the empty window of her apartment, and then she was gone.

02:40am

"Let me do that."

The movement of her hands from the bandaged ribs to the gun, and the twist in her spine as she wheeled on him… The pain on her face was no surprise, but her trembling aim never deviated from a decent shot.

His hands went up in a weak caricature of surrender. Cease fire. Her eyes squinted, her finger hesitating on the safety. But her gun came down, and her arms fell to her sides. The pained expression broke him. The tears struggling to break free of her eyes, the blood on her re-opened lip, the clumsily wrapped ribs. He hated it. All of it.

The sight of Karen Page bloodied and bruised wasn't an unfamiliar one. It was one he'd hoped to avoid. But just because he wasn't around to facilitate it hadn't ever meant she wouldn't end up that way on her own.

His hands shifted from shoulder-height to reaching as he approached her. He grasped her around the shoulders, careful not to pressure the favored ribs. She relinquished her grip on the gun completely, setting it beside the bloodied sewing kit on the little table with the lamp. Her pure blue eyes were pools of unshed tears, and under his gaze they began to fall.

The warmth coming off him shifted from his appraising arm-length's distance to a full body radiation as his arms closed around her, his fingers catching in the fallen bun at the nape of her neck.

"Shh, shh," he soothed, listening to her tears alternate between sadness and pain. "I've got you. I got you."

It was long minutes before she relinquished her fistfuls of his jacket. Then he was shrugging out of the uniform of the Punisher.

His hands weren't angry fists, but surprisingly delicate instruments of healing. He carefully unwound and rewrapped her torso. He grunted his approval upon inspecting her self-sutured puncture wound. His eyes were on hers as he ghosted over her pale, bruised skin. "If it's too tight, you won't breathe deep enough," he said, securing the bandage ends. As if demonstrating his point, she inhaled, snuffled, and blew out an extended sigh.

"Thanks," she whispered, eyes on her bare feet, fingers smoothing the stained shirt back over her dressings. She caught the bobbing of his head from her peripheral vision, and then he was shifting away from the one source of light in the darkened space. He returned with four white pills and a bottle of water.

"Just ibuprofen," he said, noting the flash of uncertainty across her carefully schooled expression, and placed the tablets in her open palm. His eyes stayed on her until all four were gone, and half the bottle with it.

"I'm gonna…" he gestured vaguely toward the back. She nodded, turning away, and sinking to the edge of the bed.

"I'm gonna…" she echoed him, running a hand over the coarse wool blanket.

"Get some rest," he finished for her; half a command, half an understanding. And disappeared into the dark corridor.

05:03am

In soft, clean clothes, she fell asleep to the sound of running water. She woke with an ache and a cough to the sound of rain on the metal roof. She drained the last of the bottle of water, pulled her knees to her chest and shivered. Her ears still rang, and the rain was a low roar, but the crackle stayed in her lungs.

She was drifting. On the edge of exhaustion but still in a limbo of consciousness that had the buried demons inside her fighting to escape, clawing their way up her throat, trampling each other.

She hadn't heard herself begin to cry. The trembling felt just like a shiver, and the pain all came from the same body. She hadn't registered the progression of the dark figure across the space. But then he was there beside her, pulling her into his warmth.

He shushed soothingly into her hair, pressing his lips there. His hand brushed up and down the length of her arm, lighting the hellfire inside her with the friction. With the combined warmth, the shivering, trembling cold died away, and the cough, as well. They were almost exactly the same height, but she somehow managed to curl into him, tucking herself under his chin, resting against his shoulder.

"This is it, isn't it Frank?"

His other arm closed around her, securing her to him. She felt the slight pressure of another kiss against her hair.

"Only if you want it to be," he whispered, voice like an echo of the thunderstorm, palms still working to stoke the warmth in her.

She nodded against his chest, a slow incline and decline of her chin, cheek rasping over his shirt. Then she was very still as she pulled the air into her lungs. Pushed it out. Two, three, four, five times.

11:59am

His cheekbones were dark with the nearly-faded evidence of black eyes. His lip was split in an inverted mirror of her own. His gate was stiff as he moved from the old wood stove to the picnic table that served as the only work surface. It wasn't the worst shape she'd ever seen him in, not by a long shot. But the hints of silver at his temples and in the three days of stubble on his sharp jaw were telling.

The rain continued to pound against the metal roof, hammering like a hundred fists trying to break through. She shuffled her feet and joined him in a cup of instant coffee. His eyes were on the streaks of water casting liquid shadows on the window coverings. He tapped the newspaper on the tabletop without shifting his gaze.

"'Sposed to keep raining the rest of the week." His voice was a constant growl.

"Is that good or bad," she asked over the rim of her mug and felt the heat of his eyes suddenly fall on her face.

She noted surprise when she glanced over to him. He hadn't considered that rain could be a good thing. He'd been twitchy and agitated, but the surprise stilled him for a moment while he processed the possibilities.

His eyes shifted back to her. "It'll be cold," he said, like he was offering her something.

"It's already cold."

"Yeah. Yeah it is." His smirk was almost guilty.

9:16pm, November 28

She wasn't prepared for the punch. She was ready for the gun, was anticipating the moment she would take it from him, but she wasn't ready for the fist. She caught it in the mouth, going down, but never reaching the floor. She caught herself, sweeping her leg as best she could in her trademark pencil-skirt, and he was flying backwards. Her fingers closed on his gun and raised it overhead.

With one warning shot the light was gone. And chaos erupted.

01:19am, November 30

She tried to be gentle, moved slowly, quietly. But she bumped against him as she slid down the couch cushions.

"Karen?" His voice was a whisper, but his whole body had tensed on being woken.

"I haven't been sleeping," came her answer. "The flashbacks are…" And he was up, sitting beside her, lifting his army blanket to drape over both their shoulders. "And I don't think I have the words left anymore."

"Hey, that's okay." She imagined she could hear the twitch of a smile in his words as he reassured her. She knew she was the mouth, always running off. He was the muscle. The brute force. He wrote his symphonies in bullet holes, not scrawling his epics in words.

She liked being near him, despite all that. Maybe because of it, now. He was a man of few words, and, though he would listen to her with rapt attention, he didn't demand any of her. He could read her looks, and knew when to let a silence draw out. He could let it go, even if he didn't want to.

She liked being near him because he was the only one left she trusted. Everyone else had let her down. Or left her. But he never had. Even when he had been gone, he had never actually left her behind. He came back. Like he had this time.

His hand was running its familiar path up and down her arm, igniting the warmth inside. Chasing out the cold and tension, beckoning the sleep. She turned into him to yawn, practically taking his shoulder in her mouth to cover it. She definitely heard the snort of laughter this time.

"There you go," he said, pressing his lips against her hair in his familiar gesture. "Let's go." He climbed to his feet then stooped to help her up. His arm around her, he supported her back to the bed. She lay down without protesting, rolling away from him to face the steel wall. But her hand caught him before he could slink back to the couch.

"Please, Frank." Her voice was hoarse with exhaustion, barely more than a wavering breath, but it held him still. "Stay."

He lay beside her. Close, but careful not to touch. One arm curved under him, pillowing his head. He hesitated. She could feel the tension in him just as clearly as she felt his radiating heat. The other arm reached out, bracketing her torso, the crook of his elbow resting against her hip the only contact between them.

She reached for the blankets and managed to halfway cover them both. She shifted back, seeking his warmth, and clasped the rough woolen edge in a fist against her chest. With the other hand she found his wrist. In one fluid movement she pulled them together, placing herself in his embrace, drawing him around and about her. She yawned again, into her palm, and slid her fingers into his loosening fist. Then the world was still.

The last time he'd held her like this he'd been pressing a gun into her chin. A familiar thought, a fleeting memory, circled his mind. But she lay quiet against him, the steady pressure and retreat of her breathing the only movement. That and the pounding of his heart.

She didn't move again. Didn't let go. And the tension eased out of him. Maybe not in the same ways – they were both broken. But here their jagged edges fit together.


	2. Submerge

**A/N:** FYI, the first section has been updated with timestamps to signal shifts in time, as I have also done in this section. If you feel as though these will help you understand the action, consider re-reading the first section. I think there will be one more section to follow. Thank you for reading. - WC

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8:43am, November 30

He had been right. It was so cold. Even in her layered sweaters and wool socks, even under the long black rain slicker. It felt like she'd never be warm or dry ever again. It was incredible to her that either of them was still upright, not scrambling in the mud. He was bearing the heaviest weight, but she still struggled to control her pack and keep her feet under her. And the rain just kept pouring down.

As if her fears were being answered directly, she slipped and caught herself on the rough, damp bark of a tree with an involuntary yelp. She clasped a dirty hand to her mouth in immediate regret as Frank whirled around to spot her.

"It's okay," she spoke. "Sorry."

He nodded, silently scanned the trees, and pressed on. He didn't wait for her, but she understood. This was the sort of situation he had lived for, had trained for. She just had to keep up.

Because even if she had wanted to, there was no going back now.

4:13pm

When she was younger this sort of thing wouldn't have bothered her. This trudge through the muddy forest could have been just another drunken adventure a mere decade before. Vermont could be cold as balls even on the sunniest days, and she had grown up with a high frost tolerance. But it had been a long time since she'd spent a winter in Vermont, and that tolerance seemed to be gone.

She would make it, though. She could do this. She could keep it together and stick to the plan. If she could survive the walk from Inwood to Hell's Kitchen on the most miserable day in July, in heals, she could hike through some woods in the rain. She just might end up looking like a bog monster instead of another disgruntled New Yorker.

She kept her eyes on the trail that wasn't a trail, kept her ears piqued. But her mind wandered backward…

A motionless figure in her direct path interrupted her thoughts. She aligned herself with an adjacent tree and stopped. She strained to hear anything, but it wasn't until the pair of hunters crashed through the brush some ten yards to her left that she realized how close danger had come.

They were loud and garrulous, fighting over who had seen the buck first, though neither carried any trophies. They wanted to get to their camper and their beer, not pick a fight with a pair of "backpackers."

She hazarded a glance in Frank's direction, saw the coiled tension in his stance, and silently begged him not to do anything. They didn't even register the still figures in the trees.

When the rowdy pair were far enough removed, they continued their march. The sun was sinking more quickly than she had realized, and her mental math put them at two to three miles from their goal.

She walked right into his back the next time he stopped.

8:39pm

"Go over it again," his voice was gruff, agitation clearly bleeding through.

He was closer than she realized, and a blush rose under her already heat-flushed cheeks. She sank lower into the trough that served as bathtub.

She recited the addresses; the make, model, license plate, and color of the trucks; the names on their passports; the code phrases; and the border contacts.

"In case of emergency?" he asked, repeating like a recording.

"'Break glass,'" she murmured to herself, lips just barely above water.

"What?" he growled.

She gave him the name he was listening for, then sank completely under, submerging with a splash to punctuate the finality of the exchange.

She could hear the fire inside the water. The crackle and pop of carbon being consumed and transformed. The ping of heating metal.

The planks beneath her bare legs were smooth and waterlogged like driftwood, and her skin slid gently over them as she shifted to her back, pulling her knees in to her chest.

She lay at the bottom of the tub, listening to the fire, to the bubbles, to the demons in her chest. She lay like a drowned corpse, wondering up at the world of flickering light and distorted color overhead. She lay until her unhappy lungs threatened to draw the steaming water inside. Until the face she imagined she saw hovering over her underwater world disappeared.

But when she rose – with another splash over the side, in a hiss of water and fire becoming steam – she was alone.

9:00pm, November 28

Karen Page was determined, above all else. When a story, or a case, or a mystery, caught her attention she didn't let it go. That stubborn determination had gotten her into a fair number of scrapes – had nearly gotten her killed on several occasions, in fact – but had never left her. It had made her stronger, smarter, capable. And it was what had brought her to this moment. To the most important story of her life.

She stood amongst the shelves in the musty cellar, waiting for the informant she knew would double-cross her. Fear flickered in her stomach, but she drowned it in icy resolve. If nothing else, she had the failsafe in place. There was a plan prepared. She had set the pieces in motion, and she was going to come out of this with the information she sought. Whether or not she got to act on that information personally, though, remained to be seen.

The hand-off was made. The gun was drawn, as anticipated. She started to bargain, leaning on diplomacy. But then her mouth was splitting open, catching an unexpected punch, and she was flying into action even as she fell.

She wasn't sure whether she'd actually hit the informant once the light went out, but she'd unloaded the clip in that general direction. There were more people lurking about than she had thought there'd be, but she moved swiftly and sure-footed in the dark, missing bullets and disarming faceless goons. In the very back of her brain a tiny voice wondered what Matt would think of her blind "ballet."

Only one caught her with a knife, and it didn't go deep.

But once she'd gotten to the trigger, she'd had to fight her way to her exit – one last, determined foot-soldier – and got tossed by the blast. She caught a brick or some similar debris in the chest and gaped like a beached fish as she crawled up the stairs and onto the street.

11:46pm, November 30

She woke with a gasp, struggling for air. She hadn't been easy on her healing lungs in the last twenty-four hours. She rolled to the side, along with the mummy bag, and worked to steady her breath and focus her eyes. As they adjusted to the dark, she realized that he was watching her.

Draped in his own sleeping bag, with a jacket to pillow his head against the cabin's stone wall, he watched from his post beside the door.

She stared back, her breathing calmed, until her eyes grew heavy again, and her thoughts distracted. She wasn't sure whether she was looking at a man or imagining a ghost in the shadows by the time she rolled back to sleep.

1:18pm, December 1

The road was almost worse than the woods. She was warm and dry, but the silence between them, between the low roar of tires on asphalt and the barrage of rain around them, was deafening.

She could hear the soft steadiness of his breath that seemed to claim he was finally sleeping, and that made it marginally easier to handle the blackout that had developed overnight.

She focused on the pavement ahead, maintaining speeds neither suspiciously fast nor cautious. She pushed the truck and her body as far as she dared before stopping, but Frank never woke. Or if he did, he carefully maintained the air of someone either terribly exhausted or horribly hungover. So she just kept going, consulting the paper map as necessary.

It wasn't until well after dark, when she pulled down an unmarked logging road to find a place to sleep the night, that he finally roused himself.

"I'm too tired to keep driving," she said, but he only grunted in response. She got some food and more water from the packs, and crawled into the camper shell to stretch out for a while. But Frank was soon climbing into her vacated seat behind the wheel and grumbling something that sounded like "Coffee?"

She passed the thermos through the cab window to him, settled her spine into the grooved bed of the truck, and pretended the silence hadn't been eating at her all day. She lay as still as possible while he drove them onward.

-August-

She sought Micro out. He might not be keeping as close tabs as before, but she knew he was around.

"I need some help. Technical help. And I have a feeling you can put me in touch with the right people." She nearly blushed when he complimented her tracking skills, hurrying her out of his new entryway before his wife could get a good look at her.

She knew there was always the risk that he'd tip Frank off, but it was a risk that would always be there. Any time she got herself into deep water, there was a possibility – and in Matt's case, a probability – that one of the shadowy figures in her skeleton-closet would show up.

But if Micro had fed Castle information about Karen's comings and goings in the greater-New York area underworld, it seemed both men were wary enough of her stubborn determination to let things play out further before interfering.

Besides, it was "just a failsafe" she promised the hacker.

She had done her own research after the bombings and the incident with Lewis Wilson. She had learned everything she could about explosives without getting herself put on a watch list. She knew because Micro checked for her (although he didn't know _why_ he was checking).

She flirted with a dangerous habit to get closer to the right characters. She exhausted every CI she caught wind of. She pestered Ellison and Mahoney just enough to keep them piqued without pushing them into their protective tendencies.

And every day she somehow carved out at least an extra hour to practice self-defense. Her martial art. Her meditation. She was determined to take care of herself, whether a gun was available or not. She would ask for help where she needed it, but in the end she would only put herself on the frontline.

Of course, that didn't mean others wouldn't try to step in.

11:00am, December 2

"Somethin's up," he murmured, so low she only felt the vibration of the words, rather than heard them. She took the offered binoculars and trained her eyes on the pier.

The security guard was stiff, his behavior far too alert. And everyone else, from the loaders by the trucks to the crane operators, moved as though choreographed.

"You see it," he asked. She nodded, passing the binoculars back.

"Plan B," she whispered, and he nodded back. She pushed herself carefully backward, slinking into the tree line.

9:09pm

"Detroit was always the riskier option," she mumbled, bundled into practically every piece of clothing she had.

A sound halfway between a grunt and "yeah" indicated that he was listening.

The lights of the pier were little more than pinpricks of light across the inky water. She shivered, but as cold as the night was, it was better than the lingering scent of who knew how many hundreds of others who'd huddled into the sparse shipping container before them and the sharp ammonia that failed to cut through it. She knew they'd have to go back before too long, but for the moment she was happy to shiver and ache in the fresh air.

"How far once we land?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Thousand kilometers," he huffed. "Give or take."

She nodded, turning away from the receding shoreline. The freighter lumbered on beneath them.

"Then we hoof it again," he continued. Eying her as she rubbed at her stiff legs and breathed into her cupped hands.

"Bring on the cold," she quipped, turning a wry smile his direction, though her eyes were dancing.

3:14am, December 3

Karen sat awake against the metal wall of the shipping container, cognizant of the slight sway of the freighter as it cut through the cold water and pulled them toward a foreign shore.

She wondered if Ellison had put it together yet. She wondered if Mahoney had broken down her apartment door and found the information she'd left for him. The carefully organized files, the photographs, her notes, all laid out on her kitchen table, waiting for him. Wondered if he'd found her registered gun in the nightstand drawer. Wondered if he'd contacted Foggy or Matt yet.

She wondered how long it would take the few people who had still been caught in loose orbit around her to realize that she was just gone. Not coming back. Would they call her father? Would they mourn her mysterious disappearance?

She shook her head, forcing such maudlin thoughts out. It didn't matter what was left in the crater of her old life. It just mattered that she'd found the missing pieces in her story and left them for the people who could do something with them. She hoped Mahoney was smart enough to know what to do next. Was sure he was.

And if nothing else, she knew Ellison would work it out. He'd find the locked file cabinet and get it open. He'd read her notes, her evidence, and put it all together. Whether or not he published it was up to him, but she thought someday he probably would.

Her body hummed with the tired energy of survival, and her fingers ghosted over the fading bruise on her lip as she contemplated. She was dry again, but still cold. Still felt the saturation of rain and fatigue in her sore muscles, her aching bones.

When Frank returned to the space beside her, she leaned into his shoulder. She could feel him shift, pictured his eyes on her, taking in her bent shoulders, her hand clasped loosely around the opposite wrist. She felt his hot breath against her neck and let it be enough.

For now it was enough.


	3. Illuminate

**A/N:** The timekeeping method sort of broke down on this section, but I think it still makes sense. I don't have a lot of practice writing action sequences, so my apologies that there isn't more here. But this is it, the final section for this piece. Thank you for reading, and feel free to review.

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8:23pm, December 3

He hated Canada. She had to insist several times that it wasn't Canada he hated, but the unexpected "bend in our path" that had his paranoia up. He was prepared to march straight across Ontario to the Bay on his own two feet if necessary. But instead, the border contact had set them off on a combination of plans A and C. His own contact.

She trusted the guy. She was still on edge, but she was ready to be flexible now she was clear of American soil. She was going to go whether he came or not, she told him, the tattooed Canuck glancing back and forth between the pair with feigned nonchalance.

She could see the fury in Frank's eyes, could feel the coiled tension all around him, and stared him down anyway. The smile split her face before the contact even heard the grunt of acquiescence, and they were off, following a stranger through the dark alleys of the port town.

December 3-5

They made their way across Ontario, and up along the Saint Lawrence through Quebec, in a series of pick-ups and rattling off-road SUVs, never far from the Trans-Canada Highway. She realized that she might have gone straight through Vermont to get here, but it's too late and there's no point in regretting lost time now.

For some reason Quebec City got to him, and she thought he might disappear there. Something about the steep river banks and the old buildings like castles…

But he showed up, with a black bag over his shoulder, as she was passing off keys and confirming an address with the last contact, a Quebecker who spoke the sort of French that sounded familiar but not quite natural to a long-ago Karen. The house would be ready, the utilities taken care of, the pantry stocked. No one would be out there again until well into March, or even April, the Quebecois promised. There would be total privacy.

But if she needed, "You can call this woman for any help. Give her my name and she will help. She is like you," he said, the slightest note of embarrassment or hesitation in his voice as he passed her the slip of paper. She wasn't quite sure what to make of that statement. Could practically feel Frank bristling somewhere behind her.

Otherwise, the college town wasn't too far, and the little villages, she could snow-shoe to the road and catch a ride if necessary.

She trusted his quiet manner and earnest eyes less and less the longer Frank stood behind her, and quickly handed off the last of her payments. He air-kissed her cheeks before she could get around him, and the atmosphere in the old truck as she continued alongside the Saint Lawrence felt hostile.

12:12am, December 6

His eyes still agitated, and his fingers tapping, he pressed her back into the driver's seat.

"I'll do the sweep," he said; practically dared her to protest with a pointed look. She watched him mount the stairs, circle the porch and disappear. Twenty minutes later the light over the front porch went on, and she hauled as much gear as she could carry into the house, then went straight for the bathroom. He had the rest of it in, and had begun to catalog everything, spread across the floor at the bottom of the stairs, by the time she got back to the front door.

He eyed her around the stock of the rifle she didn't know how he'd managed to get hold of, and the exhaustion in her limbs flared away in momentary, inexplicable rage.

 _It's not worth it_ , she told herself, _let him be Frank._ With quiet scoff, she turned and disappeared up the stairs. Collapsed onto the bed, and almost immediately succumbed to unconsciousness.

December 6

He walked the tree line, then pressed out to the property's boundary, checking the fences. He set trip lines and motion alarms, carefully creating a mental map of the terrain, the various approaches toward the house.

He counted rows of leafy vegetables in the green house; no pot. Surveyed the food stores in the pantry. Re-checked all the obvious places for hidden cameras or microphones. Re-checked all the non-obvious places, too. Unpacked and stowed the things he knew Karen wanted access to. Left most of his things consolidated into one duffel.

He made himself coffee and toast as the sun rose. Contemplated waking her to eat something. Thought better of it.

By noon he'd exhausted his paranoia, showered, and allowed himself to doze, sprawled over the old davenport in the front room.

A tearing, retching sound brought him to consciousness.

She gasped between bouts of heaving, tears streaking down her face as she held her ribs. All the resolve and too-long-held agitation rushed out of him, and he sank to her side, sweeping the sweaty tendrils of gold away from her face.

She stared up at him with incredulity and the barest edge of defiance. "You don't wanna be here."

"It's the stress," he said to her, flat and matter of fact, not patronizing. "The exhaustion. Used to happen to me."

He waited until the gasping, wracking wretches were mostly dry and brought her a bottle of water. She didn't say anything, but let him help her to her feet. She eyed him, something resigned and unreadable about the expression. Almost like fear, though he couldn't fathom why.

She shrugged him off and climbed the stairs alone.

A few hours later she was down in the kitchen, warming chicken soup on the ancient stove. They sat across from one another and ate, and her eyes were so resistant to meeting his he finally broke down.

"What is it? What did I do?" He tried to keep the edge out, but his fingers twitched against his spoon.

"You didn't do anything," she spoke to her bowl.

The feeling of his eyes on the crown of her head grew unbearable.

When she finally looked up, it was as though he'd never really seen her eyes before.

He had, of course. They're an unbelievable, pure blue that practically glows. But the weight behind them was something he hadn't seen before. Or had failed – or, miserably struggled not – to ever acknowledge. They'd been tethered for years now, the two of them, but there were so many things he had never learned about her. And in that moment, it felt like he'd be crushed to death under the weight of her story if he cracked that spine.

She felt the mask slip as he watched her. She didn't expect him to understand, knew she was being purposefully obstinate. But it was all she could do to keep her composure, keep from begging. Because she _was_ afraid. Afraid that he would disappear just as easily as he so often showed up in her life. There hadn't been any promise he'd stay.

She shifted in her seat, staring into her soup, and readjusted her composure. "I'm just wiped out. Like you said. Exhausted." She gave him a weak smile. "I'm sorry. I'm not myself."

October – New York

Micro finally acknowledged the trepidation that had been eating him up since late September and got in touch with Frank.

"I hate to say this, buddy, I really do," he'd said. "But I don't see her ever coming back from this if things go south. I know, she says it's all just back-up planning, but I feel like she's anticipating never coming back."

Frank managed to play it cool, but he poured over everything Micro gave him. He made his own contacts, mapped his own paths – overlapping here and there with hers – and then went back to punishing.

But a skeleton in a black ball cap, too big even to be a teenager, knocked on her door Halloween night, and she knew Micro had blabbed.

"I'm gonna be fine," she said. "Y'know, even if I'm not. It'll be fine. It's all worked out."

He managed not to ask if the Devil knew about all this.

They finally agreed that he would meet her when it was over, travel with her if she had to go run, see her off. And she said he was welcome.

Everything had been an open invitation with her, for a long time. It wasn't as easy between them as it was at one point. He'd made it clear, been just hardline enough with her on enough occasions, that she had grown quieter about his redemption. About a possible warless future. But her words, her eyes on his face, felt like a renewed, experimental stab at his defenses. Like a locked door being pried open. There were alarm bells going off in the back of his mind, but it didn't change the fact that she was the closest thing to family he had outside Curt and Micro. But Karen Page didn't carry even half the burden of knowledge those two did.

Or so he thought.

He still felt a responsibility to get her through with as little damage as possible. So they agreed, and she would get word to him the night of the final exchange. And he pressed his lips to the space behind her ear, held her in a half embrace, then disappeared into the Halloween night.

December – Quebec

He felt an alien sort of fear. A prickling sensation in his spine that had nothing to do with the adrenaline of the hunt. He wrestled with questions, trying to find a safe way to draw her out. But the tension between them grew. The weight behind every look was incredible, and doubt filled his mind.

She was trying not to care. Trying to prepare for the inevitable departure. She was grappling with hundreds of threads – from the investigation, from the run, for her future, for rationing supplies until she got all the way out – and simultaneously struggling to untie the knot inside that held her in Frank Castle's orbit. If she could cut him out now, it would be less painful than tearing him away later, she thought.

She was also trying to take as much of him in as possible, though. Hoarding details to carry with her. She maintained the façade of tired indifference while cataloging his own micro-expressions. She let him help her back up the stairs after dinner, leaning into the hand she placed on his shoulder. She silently counted the scars on his back as she watched him change shirts from her perch on those same stairs the next morning.

She sat beside him on the davenport while she sorted through photocopies of her sources and made notes on the air gapped laptop from Micro. Not touching, but close enough to feel the perpetual heat radiate from him.

She pretended like this would be enough, all the while feeling the ebb and flow of apprehension growing inside her, around her.

He watched her work in stolen glances while he disassembled and cleaned his weapons. He kept her company with a pot of coffee and one of the little house's many books after he was done with his work. He made her food, and nudged her to finish it when she was too absorbed in a detail to remember to get her sandwich the rest of the way to her mouth.

"Do you have to get it all done now?" he asked, and wished he hadn't when those heavy eyes turned on him again.

"I need something to hold onto," she said with a sigh and a groan of tired frustration.

"Okay," he nodded, "okay." That was familiar to him, too. The need to keep focused on something when a mission was done. When the exhaustion relented just enough that real life began to creep back in.

For two days he patrolled the property, made sure she ate, and kept her company while she worked. And it seemed like the unspoken thing inside her slipped away. There were still shadows under her eyes, and the faint hiss of sore ribs when she sighed, but she seemed less haunted when her eyes met his.

On the third evening, she crowded into him, and he willingly gave way. He let the stacks of paper rest on his thigh, held the notes she handed him, kept track of numbers to repeat back to her when she asked. When she leaned against him with a notebook full of codes, he relaxed against her, letting her sink into his heat. When the book fell from her hand and she didn't grab for it, he let her sleep there. Ran a soothing hand up and down her arm. Listened to her breathe.

When he caught himself slipping into the purgatory of pre-sleep himself, he carefully hoisted her in his arms and carried her upstairs. She stirred for a moment when he lowered her down and covered her in blankets.

"Thanks, Frank," she murmured, eyes still closed.

"You're welcome," he whispered, kissing her hair. "You're welcome."

When the light around the curtains woke her in the morning, he was gone.

-Time Passes-

Although her eyes stung and her breath caught in her throat, she didn't cry. It had been coming from the start, she told herself. She was prepared to be alone.

Something stirred in her when the solstice came, and she thought for just a few minutes that he would come back. Then again on Christmas morning. And on New Year's Eve, she almost gave in to tears. But she didn't cry.

She had spent a lot of time alone in her life, and this really wasn't any different. She found a routine in her morning coffee, raiding and tending the greenhouse, working through her evidence, and reading the many books the house had accumulated in its years. There was a record collection, too, and sometimes she danced after pacing through her tai chi forms. For the length of a few songs she wasn't a fugitive, her pulse was up, and she made herself feel like someone else.

She adopted some of the clothes that had been left in the wardrobe, and considered cutting her hair. But the photo in Page Sayre's passport looked like long-haired Karen Page, so she took to braiding it instead, for the first time in decades. She began to sink into a new identity.

January 3

It was a particularly sunny day, and she had thrown the curtains open to savor the sunlight despite the persistent chill. The music was turned up, so she could hear it from every part of the house. She was sweeping, tidying her temporary home, and singing along to a deceptively mournful song.

With the last notes of music, she paused, leaning into the sunlight, head thrown back and eyes squeezed tight. For a moment, the consequences of her actions, the weight of her life, began to lift from her shoulders. She took several deep breaths. Two, three, four, five times.

A noise from the hallway cut through her introspection, like an exaggerated clearing of one's throat.

She whirled with the broomstick, ready to strike.

"'m I interrupting somethin'?"

Frank smiled his crooked half-grin at her from where he leaned in the doorway.

Her eyes were pools of light, watery blue.

"You came back," she spoke, voice a ragged whisper.

"Course I did," he answered, and the broom clattered to the ground.

She was across the room in a few quick, long strides, and he was ready to meet her. Her fear surged and crashed into her pride, and the tears that had been kept at bay for weeks pricked at her eyes once more.

"Will you stay?" she asked, choking on overwhelming emotions. She buried her face in his shoulder and clung to his jacket, afraid to look him in the eye.

"Course I will," he said, holding her tighter, with a fierceness she hadn't felt before. And as if he had heard her anxious thoughts, continued. "For as long as you'll have me. If you want me." His lips found her cheek and pressed.

"Yes," she said. "Yes." She leaned back and looked into his face.

His smile was tentative, but his eyes were on her, sweeping her expression. Waiting.

She wrapped her arms back round him, a hand finding the back of his neck, and pressed into him again. She kissed his jaw and inhaled deep into her lungs. He held her like he would never let go, tight in his two hands.

"Stay."


End file.
